[ptaipale]

I'll let whistlecrackers make his own definition, but I'd say:

- problem is not that a country has some socialist policies

- problem is not that a country has a party with "socialism" in its name in the government

- problems definitely start to appear when a country has an autocratic government, whether it was originally "socialist" or "bolivarian" or whatever; an autocratic government then typically adapts some sort of "socialism" in its name in order to justify the autocracy, the choking of free markets, the political redistribution of resources, ad-hoc top-down responses to the economic problems that eventually come up, and the suppression of free media to hide the increasing problems.